THE IDEAL 

OF 

CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 



DBLANY 




Class. _ 
Book 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE IDEAL 

O F 

CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 



\^ 



BY 

S E L D E N PT D E L A N Y 

I* 

Dean of all saints' Cathedral 
milwaukee 



MILWAUKEE 
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 

1909 



2' 



J4- 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

MAR 8 1&09 

CLASS Ck **& 5t' 



Copyright by 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO 

1909 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

I.— The Reason for Christian 

Worship ------- l 

II.— The Chief Act of Christian 

Worship -------13 

III.— The Holy Eucharist, or Morn- 
ing Prayer? ------ 23 

IV.— How to Take Part in Eucha- 

ristic Worship ----- 35 
V.— The Ceremonial of Eucharistic 

Worship -------49 



I 

The Reason for Christian Worship 



J, 

THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 

At first thought it may seem strange that 
God should command us to worship Him. 
It suggests an attribute in His character re- 
sembling pride or conceit. How can He de- 
sire the praise of men, and at the same time 
warn us not to seek the praise of men? Is 
He not asking of us a kind of character 
quite the opposite of god-like? Then, too, 
we remember that the Son of God, during 
His life on earth, was meek and lowly, and 
usually avoided the praise of men. Those 
whom He healed He charged to tell no man 
about it; He fled away when they tried to 
make Him a king; He impressed upon His 



4 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

followers the necessity of being humble and 
poor in spirit. Why then should God de- 
sire our worship I 

We may be quite certain that God does 
not desire our worship to add to His joy, 
or to augment His glory and greatness. 
Nothing we could do would increase His 
substantial bliss and glory. No, God de- 
mands worship from us, His creatures, not 
for His good but for our good. Let us then 
consider how it may be for our good to join 
regularly in the public worship of Almighty 
God. 

It is good for us to worship God because 
it keeps Him always before us, always in 
our thoughts. It reminds us of His holi- 
ness, His love, His justice, of the moral re- 
quirements He has revealed to us, and of 
the day when we must all stand before Him 
to give an account of our lives. To have 
such truths brought forcibly home to us 
week after week, cannot fail to exert the 
most stimulating influence on our daily liv- 
ing. In the long run the sincere worship- 
per of God is sure to develop a different 



THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 5 

kind of character from that of the man who 
gives himself wholly to a life of business and 
pleasure, without ever thinking of his 
Creator, and without ever facing seriously 
the great issues of life and death. 

Again, it is good for us to worship God, 
because it brings us together as His chil- 
dren, as brothers and sisters in His world- 
wide family. If a man were to go off alone 
and worship God at some hermit's shrine, 
he would miss one of the greatest benefits 
of worship as God has ordained it, namely, 
the assembling of ourselves together. Who 
could doubt that many of our social evils 
would be quickly cured, if all sorts and con- 
ditions of our citizens could kneel side by 
side, Sunday after Sunday, not by sects and 
social classes, but as brethren in the Cath- 
olic Church? If the social nature of our 
common worship were more emphasized to- 
day, we would treat one another a little 
more like children of a common Father, and 
less like competitors in a cruel race, where 
the devil always takes the hindmost. 



6 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

Finally, it is for our good to worship 
God because that is the only motive that can 
long bring men together and hold them to- 
gether, to bear witness to the truth. If peo- 
ple are taught to go to church merely to 
hear a sermon, to pray, and to sing some 
hymns, they cannot be blamed for reason- 
ing that they can do these things quite as 
well at home. At any rate they can read a 
better sermon at home than they can hear 
at church. It is because of this sort of 
teaching that in many of the strongholds 
of Protestantism thousands have fallen 
away into a vague religion of individualism, 
the chief tenets of which are belief in a leni- 
ent God and a general intention to live a 
good life. If Christians in large numbers 
should ever cease to assemble together for 
the worship of God, Christianity as a power 
for righteousness would soon sink to zero. 
Anyone who does wilfully let a Sunday go 
by without going to church, unconsciously, 
perhaps, but none the less really, is striking 
a blow at Christianity, and taking his share 
in the attempt to drive it from the earth. 



THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 7 

But where, as a matter of fact, has God 
ever commanded us to worship Him? Of 
course we know that He required worship of 
the Jews, that He revealed to them various 
ceremonial duties connected with worship, 
and established a priesthood and a sacri- 
ficial system centering in the Temple at 
Jerusalem. We know also that it was our 
Lord's custom to go to the synagogue on the 
Sabbath day. But what has all that got to 
do with us Christians ¥ Did our Lord ever 
command His followers to join in the public 
worship of God? Do the apostles have 
anything to say about such an obligation; 
and do we find them practising any kind of 
a common Christian worship? Or are we 
simply following antiquated Jewish tradi- 
tions, connected in some obscure way with 
the Sabbath and the Fourth Command- 
ment? 

This is a most important question; for 
if it cannot be shown that our Lord ever en- 
joined upon us the duty of common wor- 
ship, then those who neglect the worship 
of the Church have a great deal to say for 



8 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

themselves. It cannot be of universal 
Christian obligation to worship God, if 
Christ never said anything about it. 

The most casual reading of the Gospels 
will prove to anyone that our Lord did give 
an explicit command to perform a public 
act of worship. He gave it at the most sol- 
emn moment of His earthly ministry, on 
the night in which He was betrayed, as if 
He were making His last will and testament. 
He took bread and brake it and gave it to 
His disciples, saying, "Take, eat, this is My 
Body, which is given for you ; do this in re- 
membrance of Me." Likewise, after sup- 
per, He took the cup and gave it to them, 
saying, " Drink ye all of this; for this is My 
Blood of the new testament, which is shed 
for you and for many for the remission of 
sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in 
remembrance of Me." Here was an ex- 
plicit command to perform a definite action : 
not to meditate upon Him ; not to read about 
Him in the Gospel ; not to listen to someone 
talking about Him ; but to do that thing that 
He was doing then, to perform that rite. 



THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 9 

"Do this for My memorial"— the command 
comes to all of us across the intervening cen- 
turies; comes with an added force because 
in all ages and in all countries the great 
bulk of the followers of Christ have obeyed 
His command, gathering at His altars every 
Sunday in the year. 

All Christians would doubtless be ready 
to admit this obligation to celebrate the 
Lord's Supper in obedience to His com- 
mand. But perhaps there are some who do 
not see how this can be taken as a command 
to join in the public worship of God. It 
was a command to worship, because it was 
a command to perform a sacrificial rite. As 
St. Paul says: "As often as ye eat this 
Bread and drink this Cup, ye do shew forth 
the Lord's death till He come.'* And by 
showing forth the Lord's death, we are 
showing forth, to God and to angels and to 
men, the meritorious Sacrifice of our Ee- 
deemer. Prom the beginning of the world 
the essence of worship has always been some 
form of sacrifice. Among the heathen na- 
tions of antiquity, and among the Jews, it 



10 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

was the sacrifice of animal victims, and of 
the fruits of the earth; but among Chris- 
tians it has always been the Sacrifice of the 
Cross, the Lamb of God slain once for all 
for the sins of the world, but repeatedly 
offered as an unbloody Sacrifice on the al- 
tars of the Christian Church. In the words 
of the Catechism in the Book of Common 
Prayer, the Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per was ordained for the continual remem- 
brance of the Sacrifice of the death of 
Christ, and of the benefits which we receive 
thereby. 

Our Lord then instituted this great act 
of sacrificial worship, and commanded His 
followers to perform the act as His memo- 
rial until His coming again. But it is not 
recorded that He told us how often to join 
in this act of worship. He left that detail 
to the custody of His Church, to which He 
gave His own divine authority, when He 
said to the apostles, "As My Father hath 
sent Me, even so send I you." What less 
could the Church do than observe every 
Sunday, the weekly festival of the Resur- 



THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 11 

rection, by offering the Memorial He had 
commanded her to offer ? That the Church 
did this from the earliest times is suggested 
by the statement in the Acts of the Apostles 
that the faithful were wont to meet together 
on the first day of the week for "the break- 
ing of bread." This inference is confirmed 
by the facts of subsequent history. The 
early Christians would never have dreamed 
of letting the Lord's Day go by without tak- 
ing their part in the Lord's service. Wher- 
ever we fail to do that to-day, and substitute 
for the Lord's service an office intended pri- 
marily for the clergy and monks and nuns, 
we have fallen away from the historic ideal 
of Christian worship. 



II 

The Chief Act of Christian Worship 



II. 

THE CHIEF ACT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 

Worship may be rendered either to a 
divine or a human person. In either case 
the essential thing in worship is the offering 
of gifts or sacrifices to a person we love and 
respect. The inward feeling of love and 
respect is not enough; we must manifest 
that love and respect through the outward, 
visible action of presenting a gift. The ac- 
tion, however, is of the same general nature 
whether we offer sacrifices to a divine being 
or gifts to a human being. 

Therefore it may help us to get to the 
heart of the subject by considering first the 
kinds of gifts we might give to our fellow 
human beings. Sometimes we present gifts 
to people to show how much we admire and 



16 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

respect them, even though we may not know 
them personally; some one in public life 
might appeal to us, and we might send hini 
a gift in praise of his character or achieve- 
ments. At other times we might present 
a person with a gift as an acknowledgment 
of our gratitude for what he has done for 
us; perhaps he has saved our lives or pro- 
tected us from insult. Then again, we may 
have offended some one we love very much ; 
so we send him a gift by way of reparation, 
to show our sorrow for the offence, and to 
make up in some degree for the suffering 
or dishonor we may have caused. We might 
call these three kinds of gifts, gifts of 
praise, thanksgiving, and propitiation. 

These three kinds of gifts correspond to 
the three kinds of sacrifice it is our bounden 
duty to offer to God : the sacrifice of praise, 
the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and the sacri- 
fice of propitiation. God is the infinite, 
all-holy Creator, and we are His sinful crea- 
tures ; therefore it is meet and right that we 
should worship Him in all these three ways. 
We should show forth His praise by offer- 



CHIEF ACT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 17 

ing sacrifice in keeping with His majesty 
and great glory; we should offer to Him 
thanksgiving through sacrifices that cost 
something, and that point to Him as the 
Author of all good; we should offer Him a 
sacrifice of propitiation that will adequately 
atone for all our sins and satisfy the justice 
of God. This, and no less than this, is the 
kind of worship that is due and fitting from 
sinful children to their heavenly Father. 

The obligation is appalling. We are ut- 
terly powerless to offer any such worship 
as our common sense tells us we must offer 
to God. How can we sufficiently praise God 
for what He is? How can we adequately 
thank Him for all the innumerable benefits 
He has bestowed upon us ? How, above all, 
can we ever offer Him anything that will 
repair the insults we have hurled at His in- 
finite Holiness by our sins? Not with the 
utmost of human skill could we do it; nor 
with the art of the greatest masters; nor 
with earth's most heavenly music; nor with 
the gold of all the mountains in America! 
Without the help of our merciful God, we 



18 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

are powerless to worship Him as we ought. 

But, in His mercy, God has helped us. 
He has sent His only-begotten Son into the 
world, that whosoever believeth on Him 
should not perish but have everlasting life. 
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the new Head of our 
race, by His life of perfect sacrifice, 
crowned by His sacrificial death upon the 
Cross, has offered the worship that God de- 
mands from humanity. Sacrifices and meat- 
offerings were not sufficient. God required 
the oblation of the human will. Therefore 
our Lord came to do the Father's will; and 
by His sinless life He offered to the Father 
the highest praise and thanksgiving ; and by 
His death upon the Cross He immolated 
Himself as a Victim for the sins of the 
world. 

Not merely during His earthly life did 
our Lord offer to God this perfect worship. 
He has continually been offering this wor- 
ship ever since in the midst of His Church. 
In the words of the Psalmist, "In the midst 
of the congregation will I praise Thee." 
He offers this perfect worship of praise 



CHIEF ACT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 19 

and thanksgiving and propitiation to-day 
through the service He has instituted, the 
memorial He has commanded us to make, 
the Holy Eucharist. 

Thus He, our elder Brother, is standing 
in the midst of the Catholic Church to-day, 
surrounded by us His brethren, leading in 
the worship of redeemed humanity. He is 
our great High Priest; His earthly priests 
are merely His instruments through which 
He acts. They speak for Him. They say, 
"This is My Body," not "This is His 
Body. ' ' He, too, is the Victim : the Sacrifice 
we offer to our God. He is our Sacrifice of 
praise and thanksgiving; and His death, 
which we show forth before men and the 
Father, is the propitiatory sacrifice which 
we offer for our sins. This is all plainly and 
beautifully expressed in the words of our 
Prayer of Consecration in the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer : ' ' And we earnestly desire Thy 
fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept this 
our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; 
most humbly beseeching Thee to grant that, 
by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus 



20 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

Christ, and through faith in His Blood, we, 
and all Thy whole Church, may obtain re- 
mission of our sins, and all other benefits of 
His Passion." 

The Eucharist, then is the Lord's service 
—the kind of worship, and the only kind of 
worship, our Lord has commanded us to 
offer. It has indeed been the appointed 
form of worship in the Christian Church 
from the earliest times. Not until the six- 
teenth century did people ever dream of 
substituting for this divine mechanism of 
the Eucharist various man-made forms of 
worship. Furthermore, if we may accept 
the Apocalypse of St. John as a revelation 
of conditions in the world beyond the per- 
ception of our senses, we must believe that 
the underlying realities of Eucharistic wor- 
ship form also the worship of the redeemed 
in the courts of heaven. 

The Eucharist is not merely a service— 
a form of words: it is a great action. It 
comes as near as anything could, within con- 
venient limits of time, to being a dramatic 
reproduction of the life and death of our 



CHIEF ACT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 21 

Lord. It is almost like a miracle-play. 
Thus the great drama of Calvary is every- 
where being re-enacted on the altars of the 
Church; and the great mystery of our re- 
demption is set forth before the faithful, 
Sunday after Sunday. It is set forth in a 
form that is within the comprehension of 
the simplest and most child-like. Thus the 
Eucharist is admirably suited to be the wor- 
ship of the common people everywhere in 
Christendom. 

The suitableness of the Eucharist for 
popular worship is well brought out in a 
passage in "God and Our Soldiers," by 
the Rev. Paul Bull, chaplain to General 
French's Cavalry in the late war in South 
Africa. He thus describes their Commun- 
ions at sea : 

"Here, at the altar, as we offered the 
Holy Sacrifice, we knew that we drew near 
to the living centre of all things; the past 
and the future, our memories and our hopes, 
our dear ones praying for us at home, our 
poor comrades waiting for us in Africa, the 
souls of those who had passed away, the 



22 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

saints who were watching our conflict and 
aiding us by their prayers, the sick and the 
wounded, the dying and the dead, our sins 
and our sorrows— all these were gathered up 
in that one supreme act of communion, by 
which God accepts us in the Beloved, and 
blends our life with His, ' that He may dwell 
in us, and we in Him.' Words fail me to 
describe the majesty of that supreme mo- 
ment when barriers of time and space fade 
away, as God rends the heavens and comes 
down, and through the uplifted gates and 
the everlasting doors the King of Glory 
comes to the soul that awaits Him. And as 
I moved round that little band of faithful 
soldiers, awaiting the loving-kindness of the 
Lord in the midst of His vast temple of sea 
and sky, I often had to touch them on the 
forehead in order to awaken them from the 
trance in which the intensity of spiritual joy 
had enwrapped them." 



Ill 

The Holy Eucharist, or Morning 
Prayer ? 



III. 

THE HOLY EUCHARIST, OR MORNING PRAYER? 

If Christ was, as we believe, the incar- 
nate Son of God, the divine Teacher, then 
He could not have so bungled the work of 
establishing His Church that it could go 
wrong immediately after He ascended into 
heaven. He had promised that He would 
send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to 
guide the Church into all truth and bring to 
their remembrance all things He had said 
unto them. We may naturally infer, there- 
fore, that when the whole Church in Apos- 
tolic and subsequent ages agreed on certain 
doctrines and practices, those doctrines and 
practices must have had the sanction of our 
Lord and of the Holy Spirit. If this is not 



26 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

a true principle, it is hard to see how we may 
ever have any certainty in matters of Chris- 
tian faith and practice. 

If, then, we wish to satisfy ourselves as 
to what is the ideal form of Christian wor- 
ship, we cannot do better than study history 
and see what type of worship prevailed in 
the earliest Christian communities, imme- 
diately following the era of the New Testa- 
ment. Perhaps the earliest community of 
this kind of which we have any record was 
the community pictured for us in the newly 
discovered document, "The Teaching of the 
Apostles," which was probably written to- 
wards the close of the first century. In 
chapter 14 we find the following description 
of their worship: "On the Lord's own dav 
gather yourselves together and break bread 
and give thanks, first confessing your trans- 
gressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. 
And let no man, having his dispute with his 
fellow, join in your assembly until they have 
been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not 
be defiled; for this sacrifice it is that was 
spoken of by the Lord : 'In every place and 



HOLY EUCHARIST, OR MORNING PRAYER ? 27 

at every time offer Me a pure sacrifice ; for 
I am a great King, saith the Lord, and My 
Name is wonderful among the nations/ " 
This passage shows plainly that the Euchar- 
ist was the regular Sunday service for wor- 
ship, and that it was regarded as a sacrifice. 
This would count for little if it were the 
only reference to such a state of things. 
What do we find from a comparison of all 
the writers of that early age of Christian 
history? Let us take as our guide Profes- 
sor Harnack, the chief authority of our day 
on early Christian literature. Surely he 
could not be accused of having a bias toward 
anything Catholic. In the first volume of 
his History of Dogma, on p. 210, he states 
his conclusions as follows: 

"As regards the Lord's Supper, the most important 
point is that its celebration (at the close of the first cen- 
tury) became more and more the central point, not only 
for the worship of the Church, but for its very life as a 
Church. The form of this celebration, the common meal, 
made it appear to be a fitting expression of the brotherly 
unity of the community. The prayers which it included 
presented themselves as vehicles for bringing before God, 
in thanksgiving and intercession, everything that affected 
the community; and the presentation of the elements for 



28 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

the holy ordinance was naturally extended to the offering 
of gifts for the poor brethren, who in this way received 
them from the hand of God Himself. In all these re- 
spects, however, the holy ordinance appeared as a sacri- 
fice of the community, and indeed, as it was also named 
Eucharist, a sacrifice of thanksgiving." 

He adds in a note : 

"The idea of the whole transaction as a sacrifice is 
plainly found in the Didache (Teaching of the Apostles), 
in Ignatius, and above all, in Justin. But even Clement 
of Rome presupposes it, when he draws a parallel between 
Bishops and deacons and priests and Levites of the Old 
Testament, describing as the chief function of the former 
to offer sacrificial gifts." 

I might add that St. Ignatius calls the 
thank-offering the " Flesh of Christ/ ' and 
St. Justin sees in the bread the actual Flesh 
of Christ, though he does not connect it with 
the idea of sacrifice. It would repay any- 
one to read all that Harnack says on this 
important subject. There is no space to 
quote more in this chapter. 

The Holy Eucharist, then, in the early 
Church was regarded as the Christian sac- 
rifice, the chief act of Christian worship. 
It continued to be the customary service for 
Sunday worship throughout Christendom 



HOLY EUCHARIST, OR MORNING PRAYER ? 29 

until the age of the Eef ormation. The Re- 
formers attempted to improve on the Lord's 
service by substituting for it various ser- 
vices of their own making. 

This is not true, however, of the Reform- 
ers in the Church of England. If we may- 
judge from the results of their work in the 
Book of Common Prayer, they continued to 
regard the Eucharist as the chief act of Sun- 
day worship, at which all the people would 
be present. This is still the intention of 
both the English and American Prayer 
Books. It is only in the celebration of the 
Eucharist that they give any direction for 
the preaching of a sermon, and only in that 
service is it ordered that the notices of fast 
days and feast days and the banns of matri- 
mony be read to the people. This implies 
that the Eucharist is the service at which the 
whole congregation is expected to be pres- 
ent. 

It is most extraordinary that Matins or 
Morning Prayer should have so generally 
usurped the place of the Eucharist in the 
churches of the Anglican Communion. The 



30 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

years of possession by her Puritan foes have 
left on the Church no greater blemish. The 
mind of man could hardly have devised a 
service more unsuited for general parish 
worship than our office of Morning Prayer. 
Made up of the old Breviary offices of 
Matins, Prime, and Lauds, it was mainly in- 
tended to simplify the recitation of the office 
for the clergy and religious, and the most 
pious of the lay folk. It was the Puritan 
invaders who foisted it upon the people as 
their chief act of Sunday worship. 

Indeed it takes one of a decidedly re- 
ligious temperament, an expert in spiritual 
things, to enter into the office of Matins and 
appreciate its exalted spiritual message. 
The lessons are mostly too long, and they 
are surely incomprehensible even to our 
modern congregations of the ultra-respect- 
able. The canticles of the Te Deum and 
the Benedicite are wearisome and meaning- 
less to all but the most devout. There is no 
action, no emotion, no climax of heavenly 
vision— nothing but monotony and sol- 



HOLY EUCHARIST, OR MORNING PRAYER? 31 

emnity and calm, expressed in beautiful but 
archaic English. 

Let me quote some words from an Eng- 
lish member of Parliament, Mr. C. F. GL 
Masterman, who, in a recent volume of strik- 
ing essays called In Peril of Change, has 
this to say of the unsuitableness of the office 
of Matins for public worship : 

"I have no hesitation in saying that, for the majority 
of the poor, to-day's services are as incomprehensible as 
if still performed in the Latin tongue. The central ser- 
vice of the Roman Catholic Church, indeed, with its dra- 
matic and appealing character, is far more intelligible 
even to the humblest worshipper. The Reformation 
changes provided the essentials of the Mass in the Eng- 
lish Communion service, a service for dignity and beauty 
quite unparalleled. The monkish matins were never in- 
tended for formal parade one day in the week, swollen by 
elaborate music into intolerable dimension. Anyone 
concerned with the religious life of the poor will welcome 
most heartily the increased honor paid to the feast of the 
Lord's Supper in recent years, and the progress towards 
its restoration to the central position of the Sunday wor- 
ship. Such a change alone would, I believe, remove one 
of the chief obstacles to church attendance." 

The Eucharist is undeniably the service 
for popular worship. The common people 
love it ; children behold with wonder, realiz- 
ing that some great action is going on; the 



32 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

outsider, the unconverted, the sinner, feel 
there some tremendous power drawing them 
towards God. If we only had more faith, 
and used the Eucharist more in our Sunday 
worship, the conversion of the multitudes 
would not be such a slow process. Our Lord 
said, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto Me." In the Eucharist 
that prediction is wondrously fulfilled. 
There His death on the Cross is set forth 
before God and angels and men. Therein 
is embodied the attractive power of the 
Cross, the strongest power for the conver- 
sion of sinners this world has ever known. 
How dare we neglect it so, and yet claim to 
be obedient followers of the Crucified? We 
have drifted a long way from St. Paul's con- 
viction, "I determined not to know anything 
among you, save Jesus Christ and Him cru- 
cified." 

Furthermore, because God whom we wor- 
ship is infinite, utterly beyond our shallow 
comprehension, shrouded in mystery, the 
true form of worship must contain a large 
element of mystery. That is just what 



HOLY EUCHAKIST, OR MORNING PRAYER ? 33 

Matins does not contain. It is all in the 
book, spread out before you, in rational 
forms of prayer and praise. There is no 
" beyond" in such worship. But in the 
Eucharist there is a great core of mystery, 
in the ineffable Presence of Christ. Around 
this our feeble words play in a vain effort to 
express the inexpressible, to materialize 
spiritual realities. 

If I may add a note from my experience 
as a parish priest, I will say that never have 
I come so near losing my faith as when I 
have finished leading a Sunday morning 
congregation through Morning Prayer and 
Litany as their chief act of worship for the 
day; and never have I felt so near to God 
and so convinced of the truth of our religion, 
as when I have come down from the altar, 
after having led the Lord's people in the 
worship of the Lord's service on the Lord's 
Day. I believe that is the experience of all 
priests who have come to perceive the truth 
of the Keal Presence and the Eucharistic 
Sacrifice. They have felt the most miser- 
able when they have substituted a monastic 



34 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

office for God's appointed worship for the 
day; and they have been most happy when 
they have taken the Lord at His word, and 
have pleaded the great Sacrifice, in har- 
mony with the best traditions of the Church 
in all ages of her history. 



IV 

How to Take Part in Eucharistic 
Worship 



IV. 

HOW TO TAKE PART IN EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 

If the Holy Eucharist is the chief act of 
Christian worship, then it follows that it 
should be celebrated in every parish at an 
hour when the majority of the congregation 
come together for their Sunday worship. 
This hour in most parishes to-day would be 
half -past ten or eleven o'clock on Sunday 
morning. 

Perhaps an earlier hour would be more 
desirable, say half-past eight or nine 
o'clock; then people could easily come fast- 
ing, and the bulk of the congregation could 
receive Communion. But this hour is im- 
practicable because of our present social 
habits. Under present conditions the best 
plan seems to be to have an early Eucharist 



38 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

for communicants, and a late Eucharist at 
which only a few, who can fast till then and 
prefer to do so, can make their Commun- 
ions. 

I say the ideal would be to have but one 
public Eucharist on Sunday morning, at 
which most of the congregation would re- 
ceive Communion. That is plainly the aim 
of our liturgy, as it is the ideal in all parts 
of the Catholic Church. Even the Council 
of Trent said it was desirable that there 
should be communicants at all masses. Our 
liturgy contains phrases that apply primar- 
ily to those who have just received or are 
about to receive Holy Communion. Such 
are the " Ye who do truly/' the General Con- 
fession, the Prayer of Humble Access, 
some expressions in the Prayer of Consecra- 
tion, and the Prayer of Thanksgiving. 

Some people have felt that they could 
not use such phrases sincerely unless they 
were to receive Communion at that particu- 
lar service. Accordingly they have consid- 
ered it the proper thing, when not intending 
to receive, to stay away from the service en- 



ETJCHARISTIC WORSHIP 39 

tirely, or at least to leave the church imme- 
diately after the sermon. Yet this does not 
seem quite respectful to our Lord. It is like 
turning our backs upon Him. Could there 
be any objection to our remaining to enjoy 
the presence of our Lord, even if we are not 
to receive Him sacramentally at that time ? 
We may either pass over without noticing 
those portions of the service intended only 
for communicants; or we may join in them 
in preparation for the next time we are to 
receive, and in thanksgiving for the last 
time we received Communion. 

Are we not apt to be a bit selfish in the 
way we use the Lord's service of the Euchar- 
ist % Surely we are if we think of it only as 
the means whereby we receive our spiritual 
food. For that is only one aspect of the 
Eucharist. To be sure, it is a spiritual 
feast; but it is also a spiritual sacrifice. 
That on which it is celebrated is called the 
altar, for there the Christian sacrifice of the 
Body and Blood of the Lamb is offered to 
the Father. Thus it is a great deal more 



40 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

than the Lord's Table, where we partake of 
the spiritual feast He has spread for us. 

We should, therefore, not come to this 
service merely to get our spiritual food from 
God ; but we should also come to give some- 
thing to God : the sacrificial worship He has 
commanded us to offer Him. That it is our 
duty to offer such worship is plainly taught 
by these words in the Prayer of Consecra- 
tion: " Although we are unworthy, through 
our manifold sins, to offer unto Thee any 
sacrifice ; yet we beseech Thee to accept this 
our bounden duty and service." 

The faithful Christian, then, who cares 
to obey His Lord's command to do this in 
remembrance of Him, ought never to allow 
a Sunday to go by without being present at 
the Lord's service, the Holy Eucharist. By 
all means let us receive Communion if pos- 
sible; but in any case let us be present to 
join in the offering of the great Sacrifice. 
We can assist in that offering by being pres- 
ent, by making the responses, and by mak- 
ing an act of spiritual communion. 



ETJCHAEISTIC WOKSHIP 41 

To be present at the Eucharist every 
Sunday has, from the earliest times, been an 
obligation binding on all able-bodied Chris- 
tians. To fail in that obligation was to fail 
to keep Sunday holy. It has been the con- 
stant Christian tradition, having the force 
of law, that Sunday is to be observed not 
merely as a day of rest, but primarily as a 
day of worship. And it has universally 
been felt, until very recent times, that the 
kind of worship we should offer is the wor- 
ship our Lord, on the night He was be- 
trayed, commanded us to offer. 

This being the case, let us now try to see 
how we can join in this Eucharistic worship. 
In other words, what must we do, when pres- 
ent at the service, to make it our act of wor- 
ship? 

There are four kinds of sacrifice which 
we offer to God in the Eucharist. They are 
the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of 
thanksgiving, the sacrifice of propitiation, 
and the sacrifice of impetration. 

By the sacrifice of praise we glorify God 
for what He is. With our finite minds and 



42 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

feeble praises we cannot begin to honor God 
as His majesty deserves; so we offer Him 
the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ Him- 
self is the Sacrifice of praise we offer to the 
Father. Only in Him, in the perfect sur- 
render of His will, has human nature ever 
offered to God the praise which is due 
from humanity to its Creator. In union 
with that perfect sacrifice of Christ, we too 
may offer "ourselves, our souls and bodies, 
to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice " 
unto God. 

As we offer this our sacrifice of praise, 
we should renew the consecration of our 
lives to God's holy will, and meditate how 
we can offer ourselves to Him more fully 
and unreservedly. We should ask, "Lord, 
what wilt Thou have me to do?" 

By the sacrifice of thanksgiving we 
thank God for all His blessings to us and to 
His Church. In thanksgiving, as in praise, 
we are feeble and short-sighted; we do not 
realize all that God has done for us ; nor can 
we thank Him adequately for all His good- 
ness. But in the Eucharist we can offer 



EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP 43 

Christ Himself as our sacrifice of thanks- 
giving to the Father. He alone can thank 
God sufficiently, as He did throughout His 
earthly life. This indeed must be one of the 
primary functions of the Eucharist ; for the 
word Eucharist means thanksgiving. 

How much more fruitful our lives would 
be, and how many more blessings we should 
receive from God, if we made a greater use 
of the Eucharist as our sacrifice of thanks- 
giving ! The absence of thanksgiving is one 
of the greatest shortcomings in our religion 
to-day. Perhaps that is why so much of 
our religion is gloomy and forbidding, and 
so few faces reveal the possession of any 
abiding spiritual joy. 

It would be found a most helpful prac- 
tice to assist at the Eucharist now and then 
without asking anything from God ; but in- 
stead to pour forth a stream of thanksgiv- 
ings for God's blessings upon the Church, 
the nation, the home, our friends and kin- 
dred, and ourselves. Let us not forget to 
thank Him also for our misfortunes, sor- 
rows, failures, and disappointments ; for in 



44 THE IDEAL OF CHKISTIAN WORSHIP 

that way we can turn them into blessings. 
By using the Eucharist often in this way, 
we open the windows of the soul and let 
in God's light; we grow in faith and hope 
and love ; and we rise from our knees more 
joyful, and with quickened courage for the 
battles of life. 

When we say that in the Eucharist there 
is offered up a propitiatory sacrifice for the 
quick and the dead, we do not mean that 
each celebration has an independent pro- 
pitiatory character of its own; but rather 
that in the Eucharist we apply the merits 
of the death of Christ, who was "the pro- 
pitiation for our sins." Accordingly we 
pray, "Most humbly beseeching Thee to 
grant that, by the merits and death of Thy 
Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His 
Blood, we, and all Thy whole Church, may 
obtain remission of our sins, and all other 
benefits of His passion.' ' 

This does not mean that we can obtain 
forgiveness of mortal sins by being present 
at the Eucharist, or by receiving Holy Com- 
munion. We can obtain forgiveness only 



ETJCHAKISTIC WOESHIP 45 

by a true repentance. If we are not truly 
penitent when we come to receive that holy 
sacrament, we "eat and drink damnation" 
to ourselves, because we do not " discern the 
Lord's Body." 

It does mean, however, that by being 
present at the Eucharist we can gain for- 
giveness of venial sins, and also the grace 
to repent of mortal sins. The offering of the 
Eucharistic sacrifice also helps us to pay the 
temporal penalty for any mortal sins we 
have committed ; for that temporal debt re- 
mains even after we have received forgive- 
ness. It is the teaching of many fathers of 
the Church that this temporal debt for sin 
may be cancelled by our good works, by the 
prayers of the Church, and especially by the 
offering of the Holy Sacrifice. The tem- 
poral debt for our sins must be paid in some 
way, either here or in the intermediate state. 
It rests largely with us to say whether it 
will be paid by our sickness, or loss, or 
physical pain; or by our good works, and 
by being present often at the Eucharist. 

Finally, we may offer the Eucharist as 



46 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

a sacrifice of impetration or prayer. It is 
the most efficacious way of asking God for 
what we need for body or soul, for others 
or ourselves. It means infinitely more than 
if we were to hold up a crucifix toward 
heaven and say, "Not for my sake, nor for 
anything I have done; but for His merits, 
for all that He has suffered to atone for my 
sins, grant me this request!' 7 

We generally end our prayers with the 
words, "through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
That is, we offer our requests to the Father 
through Him. But in the Eucharist we do 
this in act. We send up our prayers to the 
Father through and in union with Him 
whom we offer as our Sacrifice, Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

It is for this reason that the Prayer for 
the Church Militant, which can be made to 
cover almost everything we can pray for, is 
set in the very heart of our liturgy. There- 
fore, if we wish to ask any favor from the 
good God, we can ask it in no better way 
than by praying during the Eucharist that 



EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 47 

we may receive it as among the " other ben- 
efits of His passion/ ' 

"Look, Father, look on His anointed face; 
And only look on us as found in Him." 



V 

The Ceremonial of Eucharistic 
Worship 



V. 



THE CEREMONIAL OF EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 

The question of ceremonial is a subordi- 
nate question. The important thing is to 
restore the Eucharist to its rightful place 
in our worship, " according to the command- 
ments of God and as this Church hath re- 
ceived the same." Any parish wherein the 
Eucharist is the chief service every Sunday 
morning is moving in the right direction, 
whether the altar be brilliant with lights and 
tapestries, the priest vested in a colored silk 
chasuble and attended by acolytes clad in 
red and white, and all dimly visible through 
clouds of incense; or the altar be void of 
ornaments, and the priest ministering unat- 
tended, vested in a long surplice and black 
stole. 



52 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

Much harm has been done to the Church 
because many High Churchmen in the past 
failed to realize that the Lord's service plain 
was a consummation more devoutly to be 
wished for than the man-made service of 
Matins, rendered with all the accompani- 
ments of an elaborate ceremonial. 

The question may sometimes be asked, 
Why need we have any ceremonial at all? 
It might be said in reply that it would be 
difficult to get along without any ceremonial 
unless we return to a state of nature. The 
Eucharist must be celebrated somewhere: 
is it better that it should be on a slab of rock 
under the open sky than under the protec- 
tion of a roof and on an altar made as beau- 
tiful as possible? The priest must wear 
something as he ministers at the altar : is it 
better that he wear a checked business suit 
or a black Prince Albert coat than the tra- 
ditional vestments sanctioned by centuries 
of sacred use at the altars of the Church? 

But why have the particular kind of 
ceremonial that is commonly used as an ac- 
companiment of the Eucharist, such as 



CEKEMONIAL OF EUOHAKISTIO WOKSHIP 53 

lights, colored vestments, genuflections, aco- 
lytes, and so forth? It is important to get 
clearly in our minds the true answer to this 
question. Answers are often given that are 
somewhat beside the mark. For example, it 
is said we have them because they appeal to 
the aesthetic sense ; or because they are aids 
to devotion ; or because they symbolize some 
underlying spiritual truth, as when it is said 
altar lights are used because they symbolize 
the presence of Christ, the Light of the 
world. 

Now these are only partial reasons for 
employing ceremonial in a Christian 
Church. It would never be right to allow 
the private aesthetic or devotional needs of 
the rector or of some influential parishioner 
to determine what ceremonial should be em- 
ployed in the worship of the Church. The 
only proper justification for adopting a 
particular ceremonial in Christian wor- 
ship is that such ceremonial is enjoined 
by the traditional practice of the whole 
Catholic Church. It is our duty to follow 



54 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

the customs of the Church; not to consult 
our own private tastes. 

In like manner a gentleman conforms to 
the customary manners of his time and 
class, instead of inventing manners of his 
own. For instance, when making a call he 
leaves a calling card of conventional size, 
and not a huge placard on which his name 
is emblazoned in large gilt letters. 

Yet, when we have accepted this prin- 
ciple of using the ceremonial that has come 
down by tradition from the earliest times, 
we may well go further and ask how this 
particular ceremonial happened to grow up 
around the Eucharist. 

We find the whole matter is compara- 
tively simple. There is one key that unlocks 
the mystery; one fact that explains all the 
ceremonial that has grown up through the 
centuries around the offering of the Holy 
Sacrifice. That fact is the presence of the 
Body and Blood of our Lord under the 
sacred species of bread and wine. That fact 
renders all the ceremonial so simple that a 
child can understand its meaning and its 



CEREMONIAL OF ETJCHARISTIC WORSHIP 55 

reasonableness. On the other hand, to one 
who has not grasped the truth of the Real 
Presence, the Eucharistic ceremonial must 
seem a strange conglomeration of sights and 
sounds signifying nothing. 

Let us see how this explanation works 
out. 

Christ is present in the sacrament. 
Therefore the sanctuary should be made 
glorious. The best that the world's art can 
produce should be there offered in His 
honor. The musician pays his tribute 
through the organ and the human voice ; the 
painter, through sacred pictures on walls 
and tapestries; the sculptor and the wood- 
carver, through graven figures and delicate 
tracery on screen, altar, and reredos; the 
worker in glass, through the soft colors of 
translucent mosaic; and the architect, 
through mullion, arch, and column. All 
these and more may offer their choicest 
treasures to the King of kings and Lord of 
lords on His altar-throne. We make the 
sanctuary the most beautiful part of the 
church, not because it is the part the congre- 



56 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

gation must look at, but because it is the 
part of the church which our Lord honors 
with the presence of His sacred Humanity. 

Christ is present in the sacrament. 
Therefore the altar and its ornaments 
should be the best that we can afford. The 
fairest of linen, the rarest of silk brocades, 
candlesticks of the best brass or even of 
more precious metal, chalice and paten of 
gold or silver— all these we should use in His 
honor, with the most splendid altar our 
money can buy. Moreover it is fitting that 
we should make the altar as glorious and 
beautiful as we can with lights and flowers. 
It is in accord with the instinct that teaches 
us to decorate our table at home with flowers 
and candles, and our most precious silver 
and china, when we entertain a distin- 
guished guest or one whom we greatly love. 

Christ is present in the sacrament. 
Therefore the priest who is the celebrant 
should wear no common garb, but vestments 
of special sacredness and value, as befitting 
the great function he is performing. The 
Eucharistic vestments, the amice, alb, gir- 



CEREMONIAL OF EUOHARISTIC WORSHIP 57 

die, stole, maniple, and chasuble, come down 
to us from the primitive days of the Church. 
They are probably fashioned after the gar- 
ments worn by our Lord in His daily life— 
all except the chasuble ; and the chasuble is 
said to represent the seamless robe worn by 
Christ when He went to be crucified. 

If this be so, it seems especially appro- 
priate that the priest wear such vestments 
when he officiates at the altar : for there he 
speaks and acts as the mouthpiece and in- 
strument of the great High Priest, who is 
the unseen Celebrant at every Eucharist. 

In any case, whatever be the origin of 
the Eucharistic vestments, they are sanc- 
tioned by centuries of holy use; and the 
Church, being conservative, does not change 
her fashions with the fluctuating styles of 
human society, but clings to the old ways 
and the old dress of Apostolic times. 

Christ is present in the sacrament. 
Therefore the people kneel reverently in the 
presence of the "holy gifts,' ' and when they 
go to the altar rail to receive communion. 
The Puritans in England realized that 



58 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament 
implied belief in the Real Presence. They 
did all in their power to get the rubric in the 
Prayer Book changed, so that the people 
could receive the sacrament in a sitting pos- 
ture; but the authorities could not be per- 
suaded to make the change, and the rubric 
still stands. 

In the same way, the presence of Christ 
in the sacrament explains the genuflections 
of the celebrant. He bends the knee in 
adoration of his Lord, whenever he changes 
his attitude toward the sacred Presence, as 
by turning to the people and back again, or 
by uncovering and covering the chalice with 
the pall or veil. It explains also the genu- 
flections of the acolytes. 

Finally the ceremonial use of incense de- 
rives its meaning from the presence of 
Christ in the Sacrament. Because He is 
present in our midst, our worship is the 
pleading of His merits before the Father. 
Incense typifies the merits of Christ. Like 
the clouds of incense smoke, they cover our 
imperfections, purify our offering of our- 



CEREMONIAL OF EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP 59 

selves, and ascend before God as a sacrifice 
of a sweet-smelling savor. Likewise when 
persons or things are censed during the ser- 
vice, this is to symbolize the truth that the 
merits of Christ must be applied to us one 
by one before we can be made clean and ac- 
ceptable to God. 

Thus all the ceremonial connected with 
the Eucharist becomes intelligible and rea- 
sonable in the light of the presence of Christ 
under the sacred species of bread and wine. 
Without that presence it would be a vain 
show and a hollow mockery. 

But not all of our parishes use this cere- 
monial. Not all of our clergy and people be- 
lieve that its use is justifiable. We are often 
told it is lawless to observe such ceremonies 
in the Anglican Communion. It is alleged 
that it was the intention of the Reformation 
and the Prayer Book to abolish this cere- 
monial, and return to the simplicity of the 
Gospel. 

We who use this ceremonial believe that 
a fair and unprejudiced study of the Eng- 
lish Reformation and of the development of 



60 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

the Book of Common Prayer will convince 
any one that such assertions are very far 
from the truth. The final Reformation set- 
tlement under Elizabeth provided that the 
Church's worship and the administration of 
the sacraments should be carried on as they 
were before the Reformation, except in so 
far as the Prayer Book contained explicit 
directions to the contrary. 

The compilers of the Prayer Book did 
not intend it should be a parson's handbook, 
with full directions for rites and ceremonies. 
This is proved by the fact that the bulk of 
the clergy continued to celebrate the Eucha- 
rist as they had done before the reign of 
Edward VI. That is, they followed the 
ceremonial directions of the old Sarum Mis- 
sal, making only the few slight changes pre- 
scribed in the new liturgy authorized by the 
Elizabethan Bishops. Another proof is fur- 
nished by the insertion of the Ornaments 
Rubric under Elizabeth. This rubric di- 
rected that the ornaments of the Church and 
the ministers thereof, at all times of their 
ministration, should be retained and be in 



CEREMONIAL OF EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP 61 

use, as they were in the Church of England, 
by the authority of Parliament, in the sec- 
ond year of the reign of King Edward VI. 

That rubric not only makes lawful, but 
authorizes the use of the various points of 
Eucharistic ceremonial above mentioned. 
If there are lawless clergy and parishes in 
the Anglican Communion to-day, they are 
surely not to be found among those who use 
the ceremonial directed by the Ornaments 
Eubric of the English Prayer Book. 

Because of the Puritan occupation of the 
Church of England in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the Ornaments Eubric was very widely 
disregarded. But it was never repealed. 
It was even re-enacted and made stronger in 
1660 ; and in that form it is still the law in 
the Church of England. The fact that so 
many churches in England and America to- 
day still cling to Puritan fashions in wor- 
ship is simply evidence that we are still in 
the thrall of the Puritan occupation. Hap- 
pily, as the years go on, we are gradually 
getting free and recovering our splendid 
Catholic heritage. 



62 THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

Those who use the Eucharistic cere- 
monial above described are sometimes 
taunted with being but a small and insignifi- 
cant party in the Church. But surely that 
shoe belongs on the other foot. Those who 
do not use that ceremonial are in the minor- 
ity : they are carrying on their worship in a 
provincial mode, such as never was on land 
or sea until within the last two or three cen- 
turies in one corner of Christendom. For 
fifteen centuries after Christ there were no 
Christians in the world who worshipped the 
Almighty through a service like our Morn- 
ing Prayer, apart from the altar, and in 
bare and gloomy churches. 

Those who worship God through the 
Divine service of the Eucharist, with full 
Catholic ceremonial, are rather to be num- 
bered with the great majority of Christians 
in all times and places. They are with 
three-fifths of all the Christians in the world 
to-day; they are with the whole Catholic 
Church of the first fifteen centuries; they 
are, in all essential respects, with the Apos- 
tles breaking bread from house to house; 



CEREMONIAL OF ETTCHAKISTIC WORSHIP 63 

and they are with the great company of the 
redeemed worshipping the Lamb before the 
Throne of God. 



MAR 8 1909 



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